Congress CEC meets to finalise candidates for MP elections

With few months left for the crucial Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress' Central Election Committee meeting began on Saturday at the party headquarters to finalise candidates.

Congress CEC meets to finalise candidates for MP elections
Source: IANS

New Delhi, Oct 7 (IANS) With few months left for the crucial Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress' Central Election Committee meeting began on Saturday at the party headquarters to finalise candidates.

The meeting of the CEC began at the party headquarters here with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CPP chairperson Sonia Gandhi, party leader Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal, among others, attending it.

Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath, state in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala, Screening Committee chairman Jirtendra Singh and several others senior leaders also attended the meeting.

According to party sources, the party will be finalising the names of at least 100 candidates for the MP elections.

The source said that these are the 100 candidates from the assembly seats from where single names have been cleared by the Screening Committee after several round of parleys.

Kharge had constituted the 16-member CEC on September 4 with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as its members.

Besides Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, the CEC also has veteran party leader Ambika Soni, Madhusudan Mistry, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Salman Khurshid, N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister T S Singh Deo, K J Geogre, Pritam Singh, Mohammad Jawed, Amee Yajnik, PL Punia, Omkar Markam and Venugopal as its members.

The Congress is campaigning aggressively in Madhya Pradesh with Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra leading from the front.

All the three senior leaders had addressed public meetings in the poll-bound state.

The Congress has also announced several guarantees in the state and is eyeing for a return in the state. The Congress had won the 2018 assembly elections in the state. However, it lost power in the state after rebellion by party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and his 22 loyal MLAs switching sides with the BJP.

On the other hand, the BJP is also eyeing to retain the power in the state. The BJP has already announced two lists in the election-bound state.